The Mythology of Libra

Legend I
Libra is the scales used by Astraea, Lady Justice to judge the good and the evil for human beings. Astraea holds the scales in one hand and the sword in the other hand and her eyes are blindfolded for justice, thus the symbol of Libra.

Long long ago, gods and human beings lived together on the earth. Since the gods would never die while the human beings would die one day or so, the lonely gods had to create human beings constantly. At the end of the Golden Age, the world was in chaos and the human beings were aggressive, thus the world was full of evil behaviors; the gods were disappointed with human and they returned to the heaven. Only Astraea was unwilling to go back to the heaven and she stayed on the earth to run around and teach human beings to be good; she took the scales to judge the good and the evil. However, the human beings continued to fall and the world was in endless wars. Finally, Astraea gave up on them, left disappointedly and returned to the heaven, thus the Libra symbolizing justice in the sky.

Legend II
In ancient times, human beings and gods lived peacefully and happily on the earth. However, the human beings were more and more intelligent; they not only learned how to build houses and pave roads, but also developed the bad habits like infighting and cheating, thus many gods couldn't stand them and returned to the heaven.

However, Lady Justice was not frustrated in human nature and she still lived together with human beings. But human beings got even worse and they fought against and killed each other. Finally, Lady Justice couldn't stand and moved decisively to the heaven but she was not thoroughly disappointed with humans and she still believed that one day human beings would wake up and become as kind and pure as before.

One day, Lady Justice met the God of the Sea by chance and they argued with each other as the latter thought she trusted the human beings foolishly. Lady Justice thought the God of the Sea had insulted her and he must apologize to her but the God of the Sea refused. Therefore, they came to Zeus for justice.

Zeus found it was difficult to solve the problem because Lady Justice was his daughter while the God of the Sea was his brother and he could not be partial to anyone. At this moment, the queen advised them to have a competition and the loser should apologize to the winner.

The competition was held on the square of the heaven and the God of the Sea started first: he waved his wand towards the wall and beautiful water flowed out from the crack. Later, Lady Justice transformed into a tree with red brown trunk, green leaves and golden olives; most importantly, anyone saw this tree would feel love and peace. The competition was over and the God of the Sea admitted defeat because he was sincerely convinced.

To commemorate the result, Zeus threw the scales he carried to the sky, thus today's Libra.